1) Public debate in Sweden now over need for immigrants to engage with Swedish "customs" & "traditions" in order to be better “integrated” into Swedish society. But what about when Europeans are the immigrants? A few observations here from someone with Nordic immigrant parents.

2) My parents left Denmark/Sweden in late 50s. Until their deaths, they held on to their national traditions while living abroad. Christmas, Easter, midsummer, language, food. Many of their friends were other Danes and Swedes they met in the US and UK. They liked the familiarity.

3) At Christmas in US/UK, my family celebrated on Christmas Eve. Food was Nordic; music Swedish and Danish. Parents attended Nordic Christmas church services, never local churches, and never in English. No element of US/UK Christmas tradition integrated into our celebration.

4) When we lived in the US, my parents, and many of their Nordic-born friends, discussed how they did not like many US Christmas traditions, and how they found certain elements too commercial. Many also found the flag-waiving patriotism of the 4th of July somewhat excessive.

5) In the US, my family rarely "celebrated" Thanksgiving. My Dad hated turkey, so my Mom never made it. My only real exposure to Thanksgiving “traditions” was in school & later in life when I lived in US as an adult. Could I still “integrate” and understand the tradition? Yes.

6) In all of these years, I never heard anyone tell my parents that they were not “respecting traditions” when they celebrated with food/traditions from their own countries. Nor was having a significant number of close friends from the home country considered bad "integration.”

7) My parents loved living in US & UK. Their avoidance of some traditions had nothing to do with what they thought about the country/people. They created their own patchwork of cultural traditions: a patchwork that enabled them to keep in touch with both their past and present.

8) But my parents were white Europeans. When non-white immigrants do what my parents did – sometimes favor their own traditions, own food, own language – it’s defined as a rejection of the new country. When my parents did it, it was respecting “heritage.” Blatant double-standard.

9) Tradition is more than religious festivals. Things like pubs, coffee breaks (fika), recycling, daycare, respecting nature, humor, sports. We need to consider the everyday cultural elements immigrants embrace...often defined as less important than "high" tradition. They aren’t.

10) OK, so a non-Christian immigrant doesn’t take part in some Christian activities. But why should her union membership, support for the national team, volunteer work count for less on the “traditions” scale? Are these not also activities that help to forge a sense of community?

11) The “traditions” argument can be a black hole. It swallows context and nuance, flexibility and change. It favors a narrow, elite version of commonality while ignoring a far more everyday, grounded, democratic version of the many things that can bind us together as a society.

12) While many treat everyday traditions of non-white and/or non-Christian immigrants like so much trash to be discarded, European "traditions" are to be valued, treasured, protected and celebrated when living abroad. Again, the hypocrisy and shortsightedness is striking.

I live in Sweden, and I can tell people in the US that what I get for my taxes is worth paying a bit more for. Subsidized daycare. Subsidized pre & after-school care. Universal healthcare. Paid parental leave. Free university (for now). Oh, and no insane spending on the military.

In Sweden, tax value also has long-term effects: more security; knowledge that illness won't bankrupt; knowledge that having/caring for a baby won't bankrupt or derail careers (usually the mother's); more gender balance in domestic labor. In short, treating citizens like humans.

Take subsidized pre-school in Sweden. From age of 1 until school, kids can go Mon-Fri, 35-40 hrs/week. Payment based on income, but MAX payment for higher-income earners around US $100 a month. For many it’s free. Then, once at school, similar after-school care for similar money.

(1) After many versions of this before the election, yet another US-based journalist who took a short walk around parts of Swedish cities with large numbers of immigrants and decided that he had all of Sweden's problems figured out. Except he didn't. nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/…

(2) Ngo writes about Rinkeby: "Here, there were no H&Ms or other hallmarks of Swedish fashion." Yeah, that's because the H&M that serves Rinkeby is a short distance away. Of course, when you know nothing of the city, district or language, this bullshit "reporting" is the result.

(3) Ngo shocked to find out parties in Sweden have politicians who might actually come from the districts they represent. And, it seems he's shocked that Muslims can hold political office in Sweden. Of course, US politicians have NEVER co-opted Latino culture to get Latino votes.

Again, I live here, and here's another reason why Sweden's cashless society is a horrible idea: in recent years, bank websites and/or online verification systems have crashed, meaning that you can't buy anything. At the utter mercy of technology.

Sweden's push for cashless society rooted in a mythology about how willingly techno-savvy people are. It's a very classist, elitist position that treats those outside the system (poor, elderly, migrants, those worried about surveillance) as unimportant or lazy.

Sweden's cashless society can also create payment hierarchy where only certain stores take cash. Knowing that (often marginalized) customers are restricted to these stores because they can't/won't get access to e-money (so captive), higher prices for lower quality goods likely.

The Trump admin is using Central & South American #Immigrants as scapegoats to drum up fear & xenophobia in their base, which is primarily white, and terrified at the idea of white people no longer being the majority in the US. 1/7 #BorderWall

Since his campaign kickoff, Trump had demonized Latino immigrants as violent criminals.

This gives bigots and #whitesupremacists (public & closeted) incentive to vote GOP to MAGA, which is code for "make America white again". 2/7

It's legal to present yourself at a border crossing point to apply for #asylum, so Customs & Border Patrol make it difficult to do so.

A thread about THE IMPACT OF AVIATION EMISSIONS ON OUR CHILDREN inspired by @inter_gen’s 2012 ‘Flying in the Face of Fairness’ report.if.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
Those of us who are parents do what we can to give our children the best possible start in life…

… For many parents, this will include taking our children to see the world. Travel broadens the mind, but air travel does so at the expense of those less fortunate than the traveller and is helping to destroy the world we are taking our children to see…telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment…

… Flying abroad for a single holiday can wipe out all the other emissions-reducing measures a family may have adopted to help prevent climate breakdown and more than double the size of their household carbon footprint …
(calculations here: dropbox.com/s/awy663tofy3g…)

Travancore Devaswom Board has gone complete rogue .... they are hell bent removing Thantri Kantararu Rajeevararu. Current actions of TDB clearly shows how much they want to help the communists / Marxists agenda..... none in favor of the temples or devotees

Though everybody blamed the police for lack of facilities like rooms, toilets & drinking water on Nov 5th & 6th .... i clearly see TDB folks collude with some police officials & marxists in this plan .... At Sannidhanam nothing can move if TDB puts its foot down

Which means the devotees were harassed as per a plan / instructions from Trivandrum, and TDB cleverly / covertly helped the marxists execute their plans ..... the SC verdict has exposed the politicians & vested interests nexus in Hindu temple affairs ( properties)

1/ So #Sweden has voted and the Swedish Social Democrats are the largest party by vote share again, as they have been in every election since 1917. Good right? Nope. The real story is that the far right Sweden Democrats are now kingmakers, a 'former' neo-nazi party w/ power.

2/ So what's happened? Well, in terms of broad brushstrokes and looking at the result in a wider European context, what's happening is that the far right, sometimes openly neo-nazi as with Germany's AfD are milking a historically latent European Christio-xenophobia.

3/ They are taking advantage of a flat economy in which wages haven't risen to match productivity and profit margins, in which housing, transport, food, medicines, and education are more expensive on average, even in Nordic social-capitalist models like Norway, Denmark, & Sweden.